CANOEING DOWN: The backcountry of the Sao Francisco river under the gaze of adventurer Richard Burton

This article has the goal to analyze the travel of the British scholar and adventurer Richard Francis Burton to the Sao Francisco River, during the second half of the 19th century. This Victorian author brings his magnificent ethnographic experience in regard to his experience as a seeker of the uses and customs of the people of Africa and Asia to establish a certain look with attention about the local population of the Sao Francisco River, through a comparative and reveling analysis of the imperialist ideology of his time. However, as Burton had a exceptional comprehension of the native life, his travel report recreates the observed reality, as a result of his knowledge acquired through his expeditions, his solid intellectual formation and his condition as a diplomat, reveals to be a very important document about the social and cultural life of the Sao Francisco River at the second half 19th century.